Generally disappointed with the Razr

It's hard to believe I've only had this phone for 15 days -- it seems a lot longer. While it's a neat enough phone, overall I'm generally displeased. Once you get over the wow factor over how slim it is (or put it into an Otterbox case and completely hide that fact), it's essentially a sub-par run-of-the-mill Android device unless you start to spend hundreds of more $$ on peripherals to enable webtop mode.

At least once a day it reboots. Just sitting there. Nothing going on, even with 4G turned off, I'll suddenly hear the "shhh" and see the boot screen. I've done research and see that this is a common occurrence, and I'm confident that with some firmware updates this may be solved, but still it's a bit of a pain. Luckily I haven't been in the middle of anything important when it happens.

This other issue may be related to the first, but sporadically the keyboard stops working. I'm using Swype, and can't live without it. But there have been two occasions in the past two days where the keyboard just didn't put anything on the screen. It looked like it was working, it allowed me to minimize and maximize, shift and numlock, but no characters made it from point A to point B. Once in the market, once in a browser.

Wi-fi support is weird. I use wifi while at home and turn data off, but sometimes the notification bar doesn't sync with the signal -- when I'm standing right next to the access point. And sometimes it just stops working altogether and I get a "XXX needs a network to continue", even with wifi turned on. I use a static IP, and still get weird wi-fi drops and sputters, and the only way to clear them is to turn wi-fi off and back on.

Media support for video is just plain awful. Absolutely no support for DTS or dolby sound, even through HDMI. Try and play a video file with multichannel audio and you'll get video but no sound whatsoever. Also, no adjustments for brightness/contrast/hue/saturation, so everything looks dark even when you turn the auto-dim off and brightness to full. My Galaxy Wi-Fi 5.0 has better media support than this.

I also bought an HD dock with three USB ports and an HDMI output. The first USB keyboard I attached was a Microsoft Natural, and I got a lot of extra characters, like periods. And the "Enter" key cursored over two characters and put in a ']' character. I eventually used the USB keyboard that's built into my tablet case, and it works. I'll try a couple other USB keyboards to see if they work.

The auto-rotate doesn't. My home screen simply will not go into landscape mode. The Apps screen will, but not the home screen.

I really like a different launcher called "LauncherPro" (which does auto-rotate, and scale, and have more columns) and has many many more useful features like an awesome agenda/calendar, integrated facebook and overall makes your phone feel a lot snappier and more flexible. But it's completely incompatible with webtop mode (which I *do* like, mostly). The status bar at the top keeps flashing on and off, and the only way I found to turn it off in webtop mode was to completely uninstall LauncherPro and reboot. Maybe I'll look further into this and contact the LauncherPro folks to see if they can figure that out.

Speaking of webtop mode, the audio over HDMI is spotty. Not sure what happened, but the audio started out fine over HDMI, then somehow got put back on the phone speaker, which was very weird. I'd like to see a 1280x1080 16:9 mode for webtop because the 4:3 ratio took me some fidgeting with my monitor to look right. The 1024x720 mode looked very clunky.

There are some other little idiosyncrasies, but this is the most expensive phone I've bought to date, and feel somewhat cheated because it just doesn't work like it should. And it's not my phone -- it's evidently a lot of phones out there with these issues, so I'm hopeful that the impending ICS update will resolve many of these issues. And of course, I'll also try and get them to Motorola as well.

Ive own over a dozen high end android phones, by far my best phone to date for me!! Never rebooted on me, frozen a couple times due to bad apps, had to reset a couple of times. Other than some network issues, hands down the best phone I've ever own!!! No homer here, i like to root and rom my past phones, phone right here is balls to the walls as is!!

i unrooted, just because it's fast and stable as is for me. No other Android phones compare to the Razr!!! The bus stops here for me, of course till my next upgrade...

Good luck with what ever you decide to get, as for now... i love this phone!!!

Sound like you have a lemon phone and I would suggest exchanging it under warranty. While some people are experiencing the same problems, they are not common with the majority RAZR phones. I bought my Razr on the launch date and have not had one random reboot or any problems with the keyboard. I don't use the weptop much with my HD dock, but when i have i use motorola bluetooth mouse and keyboard and have not had any problems. Correct me if im wrong too, but i don't know of any android phones that have Dolby digital capabilities or give you the ability to adjust the hue, contrast, color, etc of videos. This is a phone, not a tv or a tablet, it sounds like you are expecting a little too much out of it. I haven't tried playing audio through the HDMI while hooked up to the tv b/c my digital receiver is older and doesn't have hdmi input, only optical so I can't share any experience with that, but it has worked fine hooked up to my receiver through an RCA y-splitter cord in Dolby pro logic mode. Some people haven't been happy with the razr and experiencing issues, but I am one of the many people who have been more than satisfied with this device and its capabilities. This in definitely not a run of the mill, sub-par android device. It is the group of a few top of the line android devices out right now, there are not many more phones available yet that are faster, smother have better specs. Are there issues with the razr, yes, but there are always issues with new phones that eventually get worked out through updates. If you go to the forums for the GNEX, Rezound and other new devices you will also see many threads with problems and bugs that people are experiencing and haven't yet been worked out. Overall it is a pretty slick phone though and i would recommend trading it in for a razr that doesn't have major issues and giving it another chance before you write it off completely. I personally am very happy with my razr and can't wait to see what it is capable of once it is running a stable version of ICS.

I'll chime in with another vote for a lemon device. No reboots nor wifi issues here in the slightest. Go exchange it and see if your replacement unit exhibits the same behavior; you owe it to yourself not to miss out on such a great device due to a failed unit.

Have you actually tried a factory reset? For a lot of users that can clear a general system issue or issues right away.
My phone is rock solid, no reboots, Swypes like there is no tomorrow, and no Wifi problems. If after factory reset, with minimal number of apps you see the same issues, then yes, it's a lemon.

Premium Member

The auto-rotate doesn't. My home screen simply will not go into landscape mode. The Apps screen will, but not the home screen.

I really like a different launcher called "LauncherPro" (which does auto-rotate, and scale, and have more columns) and has many many more useful features like an awesome agenda/calendar, integrated facebook and overall makes your phone feel a lot snappier and more flexible. But it's completely incompatible with webtop mode (which I *do* like, mostly). The status bar at the top keeps flashing on and off, and the only way I found to turn it off in webtop mode was to completely uninstall LauncherPro and reboot. Maybe I'll look further into this and contact the LauncherPro folks to see if they can figure that out.

Click to expand...

First off, I have experienced NONE of the REAL problems you expressed here. My RAZR has been nothing short of spectacular. I also run LauncherPro at times, but find myself jumping back to the stock launcher for periods of time as well. They both work flawlessly and yes, the both have their benefits and drawbacks, but in the end nothing is going to be the end-all, be-all for everyone.

As for the auto-rotate, it doesn't rotate to landscape on the stock launcher's home screen because that support was not built into the home screen of the stock launcher for this version of Gingerbread on the RAZR. This isn't a "flaw" but is simply a feature that is not available. I am sure there was a good reason why it was not supported on this phone, but what it is I am not sure of. Whether it is supported in ICS or not is something I can not answer to since I only played with the GNex for a couple short sessions several weeks after I had already purchased the RAZR. I left the Phone Center Store totally unimpressed with the GNex and reaffirmed my happiness with the decision I had made to purchase the RAZR. Whether it will be supported for the RAZR in the ICS update or in any future update is also a question left to be answered in the future.

Still, I don't miss landscape mode and in fact feel it's very uncomfortable from a visual ergonomics standpoint. The only time I find myself using landscape is while either taking or watching videos or photos, or in some cases with apps that utilize the wide screen layout. Otherwise I feel much more comfortable in portrait mode.

I am not a big "texter", but find swype to work perfectly for my needs in portrait and frankly find it cumbersome in landscape since the swypes are so wide and short, whereas in portrait the swypes are more equally balanced from width and height perspectives. All other complaints you have with your phone all point to a unit that is performing improperly and I would take it to a Verizon Phone Center Store and demonstrate the concerns. I am confident that at least some of what you are experiencing are reproduceable and you would have no trouble getting a CSR to authorize a replacement. If you have no success in person, dial 1-800-922-0204 and speak to technical support over the phone. They will troubleshoot the problems you are having and will likely authorize a replacement to be shipped to you either next day or 2 day air.

Good luck with the issues and the resolutions. You really deserve a good phone and you also should give it a chance to prove its worthiness of your appreciation.